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US prosecutor asks pope's help to return Minn. priest

A Minnesota prosecutor directly appealed to
Pope Benedict XVI for help Tuesday as she tries to get an Indian
priest back to the United States to face sexual assault charges.

Roseau County Attorney Lisa Hanson mailed Benedict a letter
asking him to intervene in the case of the Rev. Joseph Palanivel
Jeyapaul. Jeyapaul is charged with two counts of criminal sexual
conduct for the alleged assault of a 14-year-old female parishioner
while he served at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush,
Minn., in late 2004.

Jeyapaul returned to India before the charges were filed in
early 2007, and continues to serve in the Diocese of Ootacamund. He
denies the allegations.

Asking Benedict to exercise his "supreme, full, immediate, and
universal ordinary power" under Canon Law, Hanson wrote that he
could expedite Jeyapaul's return and help the state of Minnesota
avoid a lengthy extradition process.

Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney who is representing
Jeyapaul's accuser in a separate civil lawsuit, provided The
Associated Press with a copy of the letter. Hanson confirmed
Tuesday that she sent the letter but declined further comment.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S. attorney, said the appeal for
papal intervention was inappropriate.

"This is a civil matter concerning an extradition treaty
between the United States and the Republic of India," Lena said.
"Given that the Government of India does not appear to have
received any extradition request from the United States in the last
three years, the prosecutor's immediate release of a letter written
directly to the pope smacks of a publicity stunt rather than a
legitimate attempt to secure the priest's return for prosecution."

Hanson has said her office filed an extradition request with the
Department of Justice last fall; she said department officials
warned her it could take as long as four to five years if Jeyapaul
decides to fight it.

The Vatican said last week that officials thought Jeyapaul
should be defrocked, but church law left the decision to his bishop
in India.

Jeyapaul came to Minnesota in 2004, and was assigned to the
church in Greenbush, just south of the Canadian border. In early
2005 he returned to India to visit his ailing mother; while he was
there, allegations came to the attention of Diocese of Crookston
officials that he had an inappropriate relationship with a
16-year-old girl.

Crookston Bishop Victor Balke contacted Jeyapaul in India and
told him not to return to the diocese or he would go to the police.
It was more than a year later that Jeyapaul was charged with
assaulting the younger teenage girl.

Balke had raised concerns about Jeyapaul's continued service to
the church in letters to several top Vatican officials. The Most
Rev. A. Almaraj, the bishop of the Diocese of Ootacamund, held a
canonical trial and sentenced Jeyapaul to a year in a monastery.

Almaraj said he couldn't do more unless Jeyapaul's guilt was
proved, and the 55-year-old priest now works in the bishop's office
handling paperwork for schools.

Hanson wrote to Benedict that facilitating Jeyapaul's return to
Minnesota would "send an unequivocal message to the world that the
church has finally cast off the shroud of secrecy that has
surrounded sexual abuse of children by the clergy for years."